"Last Boss"

Mexican Summer

Artists:

Some relatively gentle tussling, a bruising battle, and a crawl back from the grave for a sputtering death rattle: it's a classic dramatic structure for climactic video game conflicts, and it's employed to great effect on No Joy's pretty, punishing "Last Boss," cut from their upcoming EP Pastel and Pass Out (out November 5 in North America and a day before in the UK via Mexican Summer). Come to think of it, "pastel and pass out" isn't a bad description for this song either, as singer Jasamine White-Gluz spends its first minute amorphously cooing over a simple rhythmic chug before a creeping bit of fuzz explodes into a knockout blow.

And just when it seems like "Last Boss" has come to a sudden, crashing halt, it returns as a menacing rumble, hanging around for forty seconds before slowly drifting away. Its careful structure and distinct movements would nicely fit a more sprawling epic, but it only takes three minutes for this song to move from beginning to end. Perhaps the most impressive thing about this final boss brawl is the economy with which the big guy's dispatched.